Listen to thisThe Developmental Audit® is a comprehensive means of assessment and treatment planning thatidentifies the coping strategies underlying a youth’s maladaptive and self-defeating behavior (Brendtro & Shahbazian, 2004).
This is a strength-based assessment that engages youth in conflict in the process of generating solutions rather than focusing on deficits. This process incorporates research on “positive psychology” (Seligman, 2000) which emphasizes optimum human functioning and strengths rather than human dysfunction. It also uses ecological perspectives (Hobbs, 1982) that emphasize the importance ofunderstanding one’s ecology as part of the assessment and treatment process.
The Developmental Audit is based on understanding a student’s “private logic” and goals as identified by Alfred Adler (1932). This involves using the child as the expert in retelling his or her life story. It also incorporates the work of Fritz Redl (1966) on constructing timelines of life events. Therapeutic clues are revealed through one’s personal narrative and provide rich insight into the youth’s “private logic” through the reconstruction of his or her important life events. The process of the Audit entails spending time with the student, the family, and other key people in the student’s life to understand the child’s life space (Long, Wood, & Fecser, 2001). Information gathered through the Audit is used in collaboration with traditional assessment techniques in order to build a comprehensive strength-based growth plan.
The overall format of the Audit includes:
The developers of the Audit have included the following key components: targeting strengths, forming respectful alliances, identifying key connections in the ecology, clarifying coping behaviors leading to risk or resilience, and enlisting the young person on the search for restorative solutions. It is grounded in the Circle of Courage needs for belonging, mastery, independence, and generosity (Brendtro, du Toit, Bath, & Van Bockern, 2006).
Practical Applications
Mountainbrook Comprehensive Academy, part of the Georgia Network of Educational and Therapeutic Services (GNETS), is a psychoeducational program designed to serve students (kindergarten to 12th grade) defined as severely emotionally and behaviorally disordered. The Clinical Services team at Mountainbrook Comprehensive Academy consists of licensed psychologists, school psychologists, counselors, and social work technicians who have been trained in models such as Response Ability Pathways (RAP) (Brendtro & du Toit, 2005), Life Space Crisis Intervention (Long, Wood & Fecser, 2001) and Circle of Courage resilience principles (Brendtro, Brokenleg, & Van Bockern, 2002). This team of professionals naturally welcomed the opportunity to incorporate the Developmental Audit into their comprehensive assessment practice. The students referred to Mountainbrook have undergone numerous psychological evaluations and behavioral interventions and have been in a variety of special education classrooms, juvenile justice programs, and treatment facilities.
Mountainbrook is often seen as the last placement before a student is removed from his or her family to enter a residential program. Following is a framework of the assessment and treatment model at Mountainbrook Comprehensive Academy.
Targeting Strengths
The goal of the clinical team has been to merge the best traditional psychoeducational assessment practices with strength-based assessment practices to achieve restorative outcomes for challenging youth. Traditional psychoeducational evaluations are based on deficits in functioning for the purposes of meeting federal and state eligibility guidelines for special education. The strengths of students identified with emotional and behavioral disorders are often overlooked in traditional assessment and educational planning. Strength-based assessment is viewed as a critical and essential component of psychoeducational evaluation and treatment planning.
When a student is referred to Mountainbrook Academy by the local school system, considerable amounts of paperwork including psychological evaluations, IEPs and treatment plans often precede the student. These documents rarely include the student’s strengths, interests, and perspective on life. The first and most essential component in the assessment and restorative planning process at Mountainbrook is to conduct a Developmental Audit.
“What occurs (and how it occurs) during assessment and analysis sets the tone for collaboration in intervention. Interveners foster collaboration when they are facilitators, committed to problem-solving and not to assigning blame” (Cantrell, Cantrell, Valore, Jones, & Fecser, 1999, p. 8).
An intake day is arranged so that the parents and students can begin to build an alliance to support the child. This day is not seen as an appointment for an assessment but rather a time to begin to build a partnership with the family in planning solutions. On this day, the family is met by a counselor and a social history is conducted with the family. This social history not only includes developmental information but also enlists the parents and/or caregivers to target strengths of the student as well as goals for growth. These strengths are then used as building blocks for intervention planning. The student and family are given a tour of the facility and are introduced to teachers, fellow students, and support staff.
The student meets with the psychologist, and an interview begins. This is not a typical clinical interview focusing on deficits and diagnostic criteria but rather a discussion centered on the youth’s story as viewed in his or her own terms. The intent is to begin to make a connection between the child’s thoughts, emotions and coping strategies. Over the next six weeks, time is spent building rapport and supporting the student in the construction of his or her unique Developmental Audit and growth plan.
Forming Respectful Alliances
An effective alliance involves both personal traits of the helper and practice expertise. Mountainbrook staff are trained in techniques to empower youth, listen with genuine empathy, and gain insight.The program enlists the Response Ability Pathways (RAP) model as the primary source of connecting with the child (Brendtro & du Toit, 2005). Additionally, each student at the program is assigned a staff mentor whose primary focus is to take a genuine interest in this student.
Mountainbrook strives to enlist the students as partners rather than as patients (Brendtro & Shahbazian, 2004). Young people at the center are invited and encouraged to participate in the planning of their goals through participation in treatment teams and individual educational planning meetings. This alliance and empathic connection helps further gain insight into the student’s unique world (ecosystem) and thinking (private logic), both essential components of the Audit.
The power of this alliance was demonstrated to the Mountainbrook team when a new student’s parent began crying in a meeting and disclosed to the team: “This is the only place that has truly taken the time to get to know Sarah for who she is — not just given her another set of diagnoses.”
Identifying Key Connections in the Ecology
The strengths of the child and of the people in his or her ecology are an important focus for analysis and intervention. Areas of need or problems offer targets for change. Strengths become critical elements of support for bringing about those changes. (Cantrell, Cantrell, Valore, Jones, & Feeser, 1999,p. 8)
The identification of key connections in the ecology is critical to conducting a Developmental Audit. To begin this ecological scan, the Mountainbrook team reviews the student’s records. Particular attention is given to the child’s social ecology. Ecological science states that problem behavior cannot be understood in isolation (Hobbs, 1982). Thus, the family and student, as well significant others (caseworkers, counselors, teachers, etc.) in the student’s life, are invited to participate in forming a growth plan. By identifying connections or the need for connections in the areas of family, peers, school, and community, a richer understanding of this student’s ecology is gained through the audit.
Clarifying Coping Behavior
Mountainbrook incorporates the use of functional behavior principles and the strategies of Life Space Crisis Intervention (Long, Wood, & Fecser, 2001) to construct timelines of significant events for the Audit. Through these timelines, one can often interpret the function of a behavior as well as identify patterns and pathways of coping behavior. This becomes an instrument of authentic assessment produced jointly by student and facilitator (Brendtro & Shahbazian, 2004). The student’s coping behaviors are clarified through these timelines and conversations with the student and primary caregivers during the construction of the Audit.
Additionally, a model of collaborative team problem-solving called CLEAR is employed (Koehler, 2006). Typically, four to six weeks after a student enrolls at Mountainbrook, a C*L*E*A*R meeting is conducted, bringing together the student, parents, school administration, teachers, and clinical staff as well as any other family members or community representatives. Through this meeting the student’s strengths are identified as well as the Challenges (stressors) the student faces; the Logic used when thinking about self, others, and the world; the Emotions the student experiences; the Actions the students takes; and the Results of the actions. The discussion seeks to turn problems into opportunities.
The Circle of Courage is a common framework for identifying where the student’s circle is broken, i.e., where needs are unmet (Brendtro & du Toit, 2005). For example, a new student revealed that she was a victim of abandonment and sexual abuse, something she previously was reluctant to share with professionals. These traumatic events led her down a pathway of maladaptive coping mechanisms including sexual acting out, suicide attempts, and drug abuse.
This overt acting out and self-abusive behavior was used not to assign a diagnosis but to understand and interpret this child’s unmet needs. It also helped her recognize her patterns of maladaptive coping behavior and begin to develop resilient coping mechanisms. The student’s growth plan included:
Belonging: participating in a therapeutic girls’ lunch group;
Mastery: learning keyboarding skills to facilitate her goal of working in an office and allowing her to complete her community service in the school’s front office by fostering her strength in communication skills;
Independence: participating in a substance abuse treatment program to foster self-control and responsibility of her addictive behaviors and develop positive coping strategies; and
Generosity: reading to and tutoring younger students by targeting her strength and interest in reading.
Enlisting the Young Person on the Search for Restorative Solutions
As maladaptive patterns are challenged, new insights and strategies to deal with challenges are formed. These are incorporated into the student’s Developmental Audit and growth plan. The importance of enlisting the young person is validated by neuroscience (Baker, 2007). Youth who can communicate about conflict and trauma are able to develop new neural pathways for resilient coping. The person’s story is pivotal in therapy (Baker, 2007). Telling a coherent story about one’s life enables the brain to integrate memory, knowledge, and feeling (Siegel, 1999). Young people are able to make sense of what has always seemed irrational and to envision more promising outcomes (Baker, 2007).
Conclusion
Understanding the individual youth is the ultimate goal of assessment. Traditional assessment techniques measure youth against norm-referenced criteria, and although useful, these instruments provide scant information about the function or purpose of the behavior and the interventions that might produce growth and change (Buetler & Malik, 2002).
Blending real world information directly from the ultimate expert (the individual youth) with traditional assessment information from multiple data sources provides a foundation for developing restorative goals and positive growth plans. The Developmental Audit fosters a respectful alliance and resilient coping strategies. The Audit is the missing link in merging assessment process with strength-based interventions.
References
Adler, A. (1932). Understanding human nature. London: George Allen and Unwin, Ltd.
Baker, P. W. (2007). Neuroscience and the helping process. In N.J. Long, W.C. Morse, F.A. Fecser, & R.G. Newman (Eds.), Conflict in the classroom: Positive staff support for troubled students (6th ed.) (pp. 695-708). Austin, TX: PRO-ED.
Brendtro, L., Brokenleg, M., & Van Bockern, S. (2002). Reclaiming youth at risk: Our hope for the future (Rev. ed.). Bloomington, IN: National Educational Service.
Brendtro, L., & du Toit, L. (2005). Response Ability Pathways: Restoring bonds of respect. Cape Town: Pretext Publishers.
Brendtro, L., du Toit, L., Bath, H., & Van Bockern, S. (2006). Developmental audits with challenging youth. Reclaiming Children and Youth, 15(3), 138-146.
Brendtro, L., & Shahbazian, M. (2004). Troubled children and youth: Turning problems into opportunity. Champaign, IL: Research Press.
Buetler, L., & Malik, M. (Eds.). (2002). Rethinking DSM: A psychological perspective. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Cantrell, M. L., Cantrell, R. P., Valore, T. G., Jones, J. M., & Feeser, F. A. (1999). A revisitation of the ecological perspectives on emotional/behavioral disorders [Monograph]. CCBD Mini-Library Series, 3, 8.
Hobbs, N. (1982). The troubled and troubling child. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Koehler, N. (2006). Team planning to CLEAR up problems. Reclaiming Children and Youth, 15(3), 155-161.
Long, N. J., Wood, M., & Fecser, F. A. (2001). Life space crisis intervention: Talking to children and youth in crisis. Austin, TX: PRO-ED.
Redl, F. (1966). When we deal with children. New York: The Free Press.
Seligman, M., & CSikszentmihalyi, M. (2000). Positive psychology: An introduction. American Psychologist, 55(1), 5-14.
Siegel, D. J. (1999). The developing brain mind: How relationships and the brain interact to shape who we are. New York: Guilford Press.
From: Reclaiming Children and Youth, Spring 2008, pp24-27.
